


Where We Win Out in the Long Run

by hitlikehammers



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: (Tequila is Thus Appropriately Codenamed), (Though Hell If The People Who Need To Know Actually Know About That), And I'm Electing to Ignore It, Fix-It, Ginger is a BAMF, Harry Hart Lives, Kingsman: The Golden Circle Speculation, Kingsman: The Golden Circle Trailer Spoilers, M/M, Merlin Knows Best (ish), Pining Eggsy, Post-Kingsman: The Secret Service, Pretending Valentine's Plot Would Shrivel and Die with Valentine is a Stupid-ass Decision, Statesman is a Massive Organization, Tequila Should Know Better in Almost Every Situation and Regrets Most Things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-11-03 11:11:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10966035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: After the world doesn't end—even if, for Eggsy, it feels like it might've—it's a predictable kind of madness. Power vacuums and land-grabs and missions from Turku to Timbuktu, and if Eggsy can manage a few hours' sleep between the nightmares of gunshots and blood-splattered specs, then it's a good week.But then they're baseless, homeless: an unknown enemy bringing the fight to their door and blowing it sky high. Then, it's all foreign jurisdiction and cyborgs, Merlin making heart-eyes and Eggsy trying to figure out if this endless-aching mourning has an use-by date. It's all whiskey and tequila and not a single unopened bottle of vermouth to be found, with no way to tell what comes next and—hell.Whatever kind of movie this ended up being? It doesn't give a shit if they'reready.





	1. Count To Three

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RC_McLachlan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/gifts).



> When I asked [RC_McLachlan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rc_mclachlan) what she wanted as a birthday gift, she told me to write about Kingsman. Whilst I was working on her [real, secret gift](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10940076), this fic happened anyway. 
> 
> So: extra happy birthday to you, love—hopefully you were/are up for a) a short fic that got derailed into a massive one, b) lots of action-movie hand-waving, and c) more about Statesman than you could have imagined asking for.
> 
> Title credit to Ray Bradbury.

In the wake of V-Day, three things happen in fairly quick succession.

Not the only three things, mind. Nor the three most important. But three things happen, and they set a particular scene, and that really doesn’t matter, because frankly?

Fuck knows this ain’t no movie, so no one gives a shit what kind it would be if it were.

_____________________________

“I fucking despise you, you realise.”

They both know Geraint is by no means over-exaggerating. He really does fucking hate Merlin.

In fact, that may be an understatement.

“I was looking forward to retirement, _proper_ retirement,” he shakes a finger in Merlin’s direction as he rounds the table. “Minding the _shop_ , having tea _every_ day and not missing it for a goddamned international crisis, living out what’s left of my dotage in comparative peace,” he snarls, nearly knocking over the chair he’s now meant to occupy with the shove he gives it—he might be getting up in years, to put it mildly, but he’s no pushover.

“Peace, you swine. _Not_ at the godforsaken head of this godforsaken table.”

Merlin says nothing. There’s nothing to be said, honestly.

Finally, Geraint sighs, and levels the most venomous glare of resignation Merlin has ever seen.

And Merlin’s seen a whole hell of a lot.

“I will do this, because it is necessary,” Geraint says, tone measured and deadly and the very reason he’s still an active agent, because he’s the best interrogator they’ve ever had. “And _only_ as long as it is necessary.” He narrows his eyes just a little bit more as he targets Merlin as if through the sight of a rifle. “Understood?”

Merlin leans against the wall, unimpressed. 

“Oh, don’t you look at me that way, like I’m one of your fucking recruits,” Geraint huffs. “I can talk to you however I damn well please.”

“Can you, now?” Merlin quirks a brow.

“I most certainly can, given I’m near twice your age,” Geraint drops down into the head chair unhappily, almost in a strop. “And that you need me, lest _you_ end up playing minder and keeper until you find yourself someone else to play _king_.”’

And the way he spits that word confirms what Merlin’s suspected, that extra layer of why he’s said yes: Harry was his proposal, and while the two weren’t necessarily close, there was a connection there. A bond beyond their ability to accept or deny. And Geraint feels it, in its absence, as much as any of them, and he knows that Harry would have been the obvious choice for Arthur, had things gone differently. 

He’d have been a trial, and largely unbearable at it, and no one would have been particularly pleased with it but he’d have done it, and learned to be exceptional. 

Things hadn’t gone differently, though. And here they are.

“The job’s made you rather bitter, I think,” Merlin comments idly as he slides a stack of files toward their new Arthur. For now.

And it’s as he reaches the door, and hears the parting “Fuck off,” that he realises.

The Table is decimated, and Merlin’s raw for all the loss without the time or space to feel it, and basically everything is absolute shit: but if nothing else?

Geraint’s one hell of a refreshing alternative to Chester goddamn King.

_____________________________

“You know their protocol.”

Tequila regrets it as soon as he’s said it, even before Champagne rolls his eyes and levels that stare at him like he’s shocked Tequila ever got through his goddamn recruitment trials.

Admittedly, at the time, Tequila was also kind of shocked. But that’s water under the bridge.

“Actually no, I forgot,” Champagne deadpans.

“They won’t come for him,” Bourbon tuts, and of course, because he’s fucking _Bourbon_ , there’s no reaction or even just an _implicit_ eyeroll when _he_ states the obvious.

“You’re sure that it _is_ him?” Tequila asks, even though he should know better by now and should keep his fucking mouth shut but goddamn he’ll never learn, really—and because they’re pretty sure, yes, but.

But.

“Look at the drone feeds,” Whiskey shakes his head. “No one fights like that except the British branch, and no one moves like that except—”

“The infamous Galahad.” And when Champagne imitates RP, he’s actually not half bad, which is weird as hell. “Well, shit.”

And the beat of silence that follows is kind of telling. Fitting.

Tequila has to bite his lips not to break it.

“Is he anything more than a vegetable?” Oh, thank god: Whiskey breaks the silence, praise...fuck, well. Praise _something_. “I mean, resources are limited, and we got a fuckton to clean up without…”

“Coma, not brain dead,” Ginger says without looking up, tapping at her tablet, far more on top of the _fuckton to clean up_ than they are, Tequila knows.

But he’s gonna be smart right now and not say what everyone already knows. 

“So we should tell them?” Bourbon asks, tone conflicted as he looks on at the wired-up agent stretched out on the bed in the room before them. 

“Why bother?” Champagne shrugs. “‘Least ‘til he wakes the fuck up, then he can make that call. Their organization was compromised from the top,” his eyes narrow through the observation glass. “Who knows if he’ll even _want_ to make contact, could be he was sent out to die for a reason.”

Bourbon huffs, clucks his tongue disbelievingly: Kingsman, tearing itself apart from within. Who’da thunk.

“Right.”

“Eye’s fucked beyond repair,” Ginger adds mildly, still swiping across the screen under her fingertips.

“They take it?” Whiskey asks.

“They’ll have to,” She finally glances up, sympathy in her gaze as she studies the motionless Galahad.

“Tell them to put in a glass one,” Champagne considers the man in the bed. “We don’t have the manpower for one of the bionic ones at the moment, but if he wakes up we can see about fitting him.”

Tequila frowns. “The Valley can’t do it now?”

Champagne shakes his head. “The Valley’s at half-mast,” 

“I literally just saw Agents Jobs and Gates bitching over the coffee machine,” Tequila shoots back, incredulous, at which Whiskey snorts.

“I am literally fucking shocked those two didn’t off each other when the signal went out.”

“So, what’s the problem?” Bourbon butts in. “Fit him with one now.”

“That’s a waste of money and time if the fucker doesn’t wake up, now, isn’t it?” Champagne snaps before sobering. “Besides, those two asshats can’t do it.”

Tequila’s eyes widen. “Seriously?” Because, well: those asshats may be asshates, but they’re really fucking good at their jobs.

“Haven’t you heard?” Ginger pipes up again, tone not just sober, but straight-up sad. “The Valley lost its fearless leader in the fray.”

Everyone but Champagne goes still. 

“No,” Whiskey’s the only one brave enough to breathe it because, because...

“Yep,” Champagne says with a deep sigh. “The Woz is dead. Long live,” he pauses, shakes his head, and finally settles on the only words he’s got: “Well, fuck.”

And Champagne looks at the shell of a legend, lying one-eyed under stark white sheets, and grimaces as he speaks through the glass:

“Long live you, I guess, you sonuvabitch.” 

_____________________________

They’re in a room that Eggsy’s never seen before. Not that he’s seen _much_ of the manor, really, s’fucking huge, but.

Point is, the surroundings are unfamiliar, and maybe that’s best. Maybe that’s what’s needed. Maybe Eggsy needs not to have any sense of footing, needs to be disconnected from what’s about to be said and fully rooted in the half-unreal space he’s inhabited, every alias he’s let himself sink into and give his everything to because his everything is so much _less_ , now: maybe that’s where Eggsy needs to be when Merlin finally sits him down, seven whirlwind missions after the Day—Eggsy needs to be only as much within himself as he can be and still stay breathing, if only just.

Anything more, and he won’t make it out alive.

He’s trying his damnedest to convince himself—his mind when it reels, his body when it aches, his soul when it feels like it got ripped from his bones and his heart, fuck, _fuck_ , but that—

He’s been trying to convince himself that he wants to make it out alive. That that’s a goal worth reaching. And Eggsy’s a dramatic fuck sometimes, he knows that, but swear down: for all that he has, for all that’s not objectively shit in his life, he’s entirely certain that loss and gain, really, are nothing compared to the unknown what-if, all the things he’d slowly grown to picture in his head, the little signs he was probably imagining or misreading but then the lingering touches that last night, that only night where nothing happened but everything changed and then there was a blank in the wrong fucking gun, because the faultlines and fractures that started before that plane took off for a church in Podunk, Nowhere, set roots at the foot of a staircase, fucking hell, but Eggsy didn’t realise it until there was red on that screen and blue in that sky and no more movement of breath, the subtle shake of the feed that meant life and Eggsy’s always been too late to stop the bad things, and hold the good things, and that’s who he is.

But he swears to a god he don’t believe in: this is worse, and making it out alive isn’t a given, is a goddamn trial and a question of whether, for all he still has, if the poison in everything left is worth the effort, the ache.

It’s a toss up, each day, whether he manages.

“Geraint,” Merlin starts without prelude, stopping quick with a wry smile to correct himself: “well, _Arthur_ , will propose full Knighthood.” Merlin eyes Eggsy above the frames of his glasses. “Within the month, or hell, within the week, I’d suspect.”

Eggsy nods, and there’s a chair he can sit in; he doesn’t sit. Stands at-ease. Which is odd, because he’s never felt comfortable like that, and because it’s not required, and the suits certainly aren’t cut for it.

But then, nothing makes any fucking sense anymore, so it’s probably as fitting as anything could possibly be.

“Right,” Eggsy nods, and Merlin sighs, pulling off his glasses and pinching at the bridge of his nose.

“He won’t ask you which name you want.” 

Eggsy nods, and it’s weird, right, because his pulse is steady, but goddamn does it _hurt_ —but it always seems to, these days. Whatever’s left of it always seems to fucking hurt. 

It’s the only way Eggsy really knows there is any of it left, to be fair.

“Right.”

“It is likely, however—” Merlin starts, and shakes his head, and Eggsy knows where he’s going, Eggsy knows and it takes a bit of time for the knowledge to sink in and it’s been this way all his life, really, and no military or Kingsman training would ever condition it outta him.

When shit like this happens, it hits his blood first.

_Hurts, hurts, hurts—_

Jesus fuck.

“I,” Eggsy’s mouth opens, without his permission. He’s standing, arms crossed behind him, and clenched around his forearms to the point where his hands start to go numb, go cold and that’s familiar, ain’t it, that’s fucking familiar and—

Merlin’s at his side, suddenly, unexpectedly, and it’s only when his hand settles on Eggsy’s shoulder that Eggsy realises he’s shaking.

Goddamnit. God _damnit_ , he’s got this far, this will _not_ be where he snaps.

It still hurts, it still hurts in his chest and that means it’s not time to snap, he’s still got things to break so there are things to stand on, if he can feel the cracking that means it’s not come apart entirely, not yet.

Not _yet_.

“I have, what is not an inconsiderable amount of sway in this organisation, I suspect you realise,” Merlin says, voice low as his hand tightens on Eggsy’s arm. “I am fairly confident I can persuade him at least _against_ an option, if not directly for one.”

Eggsy starts nodding because maybe moving his head will stop the trembling everywhere else, but that’s a fucking joke; it really just throws off any semblance of stability he thought he had in hand, thought he’d got a grip on and could at least keep braiding up the frayed ends to pretend there was something left that was still unraveled, still intact.

“Which begs the question,” Merlin says, hesitant in a way Eggsy’d never expected of him; gentle in a way Eggsy’d never realised he _needed_ , from anyone. 

“Do you want it?”

And it: _it_ being so much more than a name, than an idea or a position, a mantle, a, a—

Eggsy tries to stand taller, tries to gather himself into the agent he is, the _man_ he tries to be, the one who merited some pride, who could make him, _him_ —

 _Fuck_.

“What would you do?” Eggsy rasps, not able to look at Merlin, not able to let himself blink unless he’s okay with letting the sting behind his eyes turn into something viable, tangible, and he can’t.

He can’t, he hasn’t, because he knows if he starts, if he _starts_ —

“I wish I could tell ye,” Merlin answers, voice just growing lower, thicker, and maybe he’s trying not to give the world anything too big, too firm to break, just the same. “I dinnae whether it would hurt more, or less, to take it as an honour, or if it’d be a shadow to walk in. A reminder of better times, or of the worst.”

Eggsy’s nodding, keeps nodding, for no reason; there’s nothing that doesn’t remind him of the better times, when everything was possibility, no matter the absolute unlikelihood; of the worst, the words that could have been said, should have been said, should _never_ have been _said_ —

Of the missed. The _lost_.

“I don’t know, Eggsy,” Merlin says softly. “I’m sorry.”

So’s Eggsy. So is Eggsy, fucking _hell_ , because there were things he would say, he _would_ say them even if they made no sense and were never going to be offered anything in turn, never met with anything like the same but fuck it, _fuck_ it, if it lost Eggsy everything to say them, then that’s something he could live with, because it’s got to be better than this; this, where he’s got nothing in that space, that place with all the unasked questions and all the declarations that will not die—there’s nothing left in that place to lose, anyway.

Not now.

“I don’t want,” Eggsy says, and he doesn’t know where it goes until it just does, until it runs away from him and he starts to spiral, starts to lose grip: “I don’t want a _name_ ,” and he starts to choke because the hand on his arm isn’t the one he wants, and he lived his whole life learning not to want and he started to trust, he started to falter and he should have known better but he’d never met someone like, like—

He doesn’t want a goddamn name.

“I,” Eggsy grits out, and he knows it sounds just as painful as it is: “I want _him_.”

Eggsy doesn’t know if he falls apart first, and Merlin catches him, or if Merlin sees it coming and jumps, because that’s what Merlin knows: he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t have enough in him, enough _of_ himself, just now, to give a shit.

“So do we all, lad,” and Merlin’s holding him tight enough that, were Eggsy sound enough of mind to notice, he might suspect that maybe Merlin needs to fall apart a little, too, murmuring as Eggsy clings to him unrepentant, entirely unmoored:

“So do we all.”

_____________________________

Indeed, three things happen in quick succession. 

Yet inevitably: the course of _happening_ does not stop there.

Which, at the moment, is right fucking _inconvenient_ , all things considered. 

But after everything, really: no one ever said it’d be easy, whatever happened to come next.


	2. The Colour Red

She was very intentional, when she chose the name.

And before you start that bullshit, no. It’s not just because of _him_ , either. They met early on, so many years ago now—enough years that she didn’t mourn him, not that she would have. Delusions of grandeur and genuine but narrow-minded brilliance aren’t a viable combination, after all, as the proof of things made clear. “V-Day” was never going to be anything but a failure from the start—too many variables, too many high-minded ideals obscuring the reality of the matter: power. Mayhem. God complexes run amok in an international pissing contest.

And to think, Rich may have avoided it all had he been better in bed, when they’d known each other. She could have overlooked his idiocy, maybe, if he’d given better head. 

And fuck, but that obsession with Big Macs.

But it’s not for him. There’s a symmetry, yes. Sacrifice, obviously. Flowers, but she’s more precise. The differences, though: that’s where it’s essential. That’s where it counts. Because he was channelling the promise a massacre.

She’s honoring the casualties of a war already won.

There is _profundity_ , in that difference.

She sighs, and spreads the documents she’s just piled and tapped into prim-lined order, top to bottom even if the sides are misaligned. One more time, she wants to look these through.

Point is: Poppy chose her name her name on purpose, _with_ purpose, and she’s damn well going to see that purpose through. 

_____________________________

He’s only human, in the end—not in the _death-defying spy-job making your mortality real fuckin’ obvious_ sort of way, but in the warts-’n-all kind of flawed way that makes up for the fact that, while Eggsy’s has his share of fun, he was more than willing to let his reputation grow of its own accord far beyond the truth of things without bothering to quash the rumours. ‘Cause it ain’t just posh girls who like a bit o’ rough, y’know.

Point being: he’s not the _most_ worldly of men between the sheets, but he knows his stuff, and he still thinks this is the best feeling in the whole goddamn world: the part where the peak’s behind you and the sweat cools and you’re still gasping for breath enough that your mind’s a bit hazy, but clear enough that it knows, that _you_ know, that the world’s far enough not to touch you, that it’s still just that bit too far beyond your reach

So maybe he takes more honeypots than he technically needs to—but they’re shorthanded, and Merlin just rolls his eyes, and Eggsy knows what goes through his mind, what it looks like, and it ain’t like Eggsy’s not a warm-blooded man who enjoys it all for its own sake, and it’s not like he isn’t about having a good time on the job, catching whoever’

Eggsy honestly never thought he’d run into the Princess again, after the bunker. 

Which is not to say that Eggsy is displeased that he was wrong on that score.

“I think maybe I have misinterpreted.”

Eggsy is still enjoying the dull haze of the comedown and, really; honest? She never misinterprets this shit. Tilde’s fuckin’ aces, she is. 

“Hmm?”

“You wear all of the red,” she says, a little lazily, a little far away—that tipsy-but-not lilt she gets after sex, when she’s far more insightful than she should be because, you know. The _sex_. “I thought you liked it very much.”

Her fingers slide along the elastic of her long-discarded g-string where it had landed on the bedside lamp and she twirls the crimson lace idly. Eggsy’s brow furrows, he can feel it.

“Luv, I honestly could not give a shit less what colour this is,” he grabs for it, and tosses it to the floor where it belongs, and doesn’t miss his own carefully draped jacket in a deeper shade on the chaise. “You get me?”

Tilde smirks.

“Oh, I have _got_ you, many times now.”

Eggsy grins, and leans back into the pillows. Cheeky.

No pun intended. Well.

Not _really_.

“We have fun,” she states plainly, and Eggsy likes that about her—that she knows what she is, how she looks, her own strengths and weaknesses and about 98 percent of the Kama Sutra, and owns it without flaunting it. Her confidence, and her lack of metaphorical fucking around, is probably what makes him inclined to let go with her where he can't elsewhere. 

Won't, elsewhere. 

“We do,” he agrees. They have all sorts of fun. 

“But you do not wear the red because you like it.”

Eggsy blinks. And then again.

Because he’s a goddamn spy now. An international _superpy_ , and he should damn well be able to read into shit like that.

He can damn well read into shit like that.

“Though if that is not the reason,” Tilde’s reaching over and playing idly with Eggsy’s hair; doesn’t look, and Eggsy’s quickly thinking he needs to get the fuck out of here, because that touch feels—

That touch feels like something it isn’t, some _one_ it isn’t—

“Then what is, I wonder?”

Eggsy fucking hates the colour red.

“To remember?” Tilde muses, tone light when the words are heavy on Eggsy’s chest, in his throat. “To make sure you do not forget?”

Goddamnit. God _damnit_ —

“Couldn’t,” Eggsy mouths, hateful and heartfelt and breaking at the seams, fucking _fuck_ ; “can’t—”

“Mourning, maybe?” Tilde says; and this time it’s not idle. 

“A kind of,” yeah, no: this time it’s fucking pointed, and Eggsy can feel Tilde’s eyes on him when she asks but doesn’t ask, because the red he wears, the red waiting for him—

“A kind of punishment, maybe? Out of guilt?”

Eggsy’s breath catches, but he doesn’t make a sound. He’s trained well enough, at least, for that.

“Gotta go, luv,” he says, nonchalant as he can, and maybe the colour of the suit he shrugs on _is_ the same that splattered a screen that he can’t fucking forget but so what, so fucking _what_ , Jesus _Christ_ —

“Y’know,” he says, slipping on his shoes. “The bad guys wait for no one and what not.”

“Hmm,” Tilde hums, and lies back in the bed, sprawled and sated and satisfied, and if she’s sad it’s only a little; “goodbye then.”

Eggsy’s not so proud to pretend he doesn’t basically fucking run from the room before he breaks the fuck down and misses extraction to London. 

_____________________________

It’s not like Eggsy hasn’t thought about. Doesn’t think about it. About burning all of it, everything.

He’d asked for the colours before they’d named him, knighted him proper. Before he didn’t need the red, red, _red_ to keep it in his every waking moment, his every heartbeat and breath, the armour that let him live or watched him die: he’d asked for it all before Geraint had squinted at him for long minutes before denying him the greatest solace, the greatest burden, the greatest vote of confidence and the greatest insult to a legacy in the world; and called him _Tristan_. 

And then the red became a motherfucking given.

Truth is, though: he doesn’t need neither. To remember.

To hurt like he should, like he’s meant to, for this.

For _him_.

And hell, but he can’t burn the suits, either, ‘cause goddamnit, he’s developed a fucking _appreciation_ for the art in it, the skill of the tailoring.

Fuck _all_.

_____________________________

“You’ve got to get over this.”

Eggsy honestly doesn’t know why he called Roxy after he boarded the jet and poured himself a scotch. 

“I don’t know what you're talking about.”

“Don’t try to fuck around with me.” Really. He has no fucking idea why he called her. “You know better.”

And just because he _knows_ better doesn’t mean he _does_ better.

 _She_ should know better than that, by now.

“Ain’t got a clue what you’re gettin’ at, Roxalot.”

“You’re lucky I’m not there,” and Eggsy can hear the eyeroll. “You know how I feel about that godforsaken name.”

“It’s a fuckin’ epic name,” Eggsy says between sips of his dram. “You’re just mad I came up with it first.”

“Two martinis is enough, Eggsy,” she says, and ha. _Ha_ , she’s wrong.

She’s so wrong, there’s not a martini in sight, so. There.

Wrong.

“You’re not even here, how do you even know that’s what I’m drinking? S’scotch tonight.”

“Sure it is,” she says, like it doesn’t matter. And objectively, it probably doesn’t.

And she doesn’t need to know about the vermouth and the cocktail glass waiting next to the Lagavulin. 

“You’re not even here,” and there’s also not a whine in Eggsy’s voice. Not at all.

He’s not _that_ fucking petulant.

“And yet,” Roxy tosses back, dry as the fucking martini’s gonna be and Eggsy doesn’t even want the scotch anymore.

Fucking hell.

“You’re fuckin’ scary, you know that?”

“Part of my charm.”

They’re quiet between them, for a second. Eggsy picks a gin, even though he doesn’t have to pick one. He knows what he wants.

“You’ve _got_ to get _over_ this, Eggsy,” Roxy breaks the silence, and he tone’s gone solemn—that’s never a good sign. ““I’m worried about you.”

“Get over havin’ a coupla drinks after a successful mission?” Eggsy says, and is quiet again for ten fucking seconds. Exactly. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“You’re an idiot, Eggsy, but you’re not stupid.”

Eggy snorts.

“That literally made no fuckin’ sense.”

“Look,” and there it is. Roxy’s no-nonsense voice. “He was fond of you, there’s no doubt of that. But,” she pauses, and Eggsy downs his martini in a single goddamned go. “But it was, you, Har—”

“You’re gonna stop right there.” There’s a sharpness to Eggsy’s words that he doesn’t expect. Maybe something in him knew it was needed though, to shut her up before she says it, before she _says_ it; to keep her quiet before she broke him.

He clears his throat and pours the gin again. 

“Where you off to?”

“Classified.”

“Because that makes a fuckton of sense,” Eggsy snorts; “no honour among spies, s’that it?”

“It’s in case we’re compromised, you know that.”

“Of course I _know_ that,” he shoots back; “idiot, remember. M’not stupid.”

He can tell she’s about to say something, but really?

Eggsy needs to not hear whatever it is, and needs instead to get really fucking pissed.

“Take care of yourself, Rox.”

“Eggsy, wait—”

He disconnects the line, and stirs—loses himself in it, and it’s more than ten seconds, he’s sure of it. 

Tastes like shit for it, too.

_____________________________

“Mogana.”

Morgana double-checks the line; secure.

She didn’t need to, but she’s likes to sure.

“Ginger.”

“Any changes?”

“Nothing of note. Well,” Morgana twirls a pen between her fingers—‘none of note’ being a relative term in their line of work, particularly post V-Day. “You know what I mean.”

Ginger’s sigh is audible across the line. “Unfortunately.” She pauses, and sighs again. “Do you think it will ever settle down?”

Morgana snorts, entirely undignified—she’s only like that with her own, distance and nation and subdivision be damned. “Was it settled down before?”

“You’ve got a point.” She hears Ginger shuffle papers on her end before she asks. “How many active threats?”

“Are you kidding?”

“How many are _you_ actively monitoring, personally?

“Three,” Ginger answers; “and you?”

“Two.” Morgana frowns; the discrepancy doesn’t sit well. “We’ll review and reconvene.”

“Where’s Merlin?” Ginger asks, pretending to be subtle as Morgana just smirks to herself. Those two need to find a bed and a locked door and get this decades-long tete-a-tete out of their systems.

“Initiating our new Arthur.”

It’s Ginger who snorts this time. “Is that wise?”

No. Of course it’s not. But.

“It’s necessary.”

“Right,” Ginger sobers. “Security protocols?”

“In place,” Morgana confirms; she appreciates the straightforward question: the British agency was the only one to lose their head, literally and figuratively, in V-Day to his own betrayal. Everyone else has been ‘politely’ encouraging their increased vetting since. “Hence Merlin.”

“Understood,” Ginger confirms; “Same time next week?”

“Unless a better offer comes knocking,” Morgana says before disconnecting the line.

She does so enjoy their talks.

_____________________________

Eggsy follows protocol upon landing; he’s not sure why they’re redirected to Stansted, but he goes along with the gig as he’s supposed: private, reclusive billionaire heir-something-whatever.

He’s got real good at it, too, if he can say so himself.

He makes his way to the shop instead of HQ, per orders, and the car stops oddly far from Saville Road, fucking automation—and there’s a fucking storm, too, of course; but as much as Eggsy tries to yell at it, or contact Merlin, he gets no response. He chalks it up to a general tech outage on his end: unsettling, maybe, but whatever. He’s almost home.

And then the earth shakes under his feet. And the darkness of the night starts to flicker, even this far from where Eggsy suddenly knows it’s coming from.

The rain doesn’t matter, suddenly, as he runs; even though he knows what he’ll see: impossible, in-fucking- _possible_ —

His shoes crunch the glass first, and maybe he was tempting fate with the desire to burn his suits as all the rest of them go up in smoke before his eyes.

He watches the flames, the world tipping on its axis, and it’s only after he’s soaked that he thinks to open his fucking umbrella.


	3. Gardening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Statesman talking and fucking around; not lots of beta-work. As in, none. I didn't do any, nor did anyone else. So might be a mess. Oh well.

“Inbound,” Vodka announces, which is great on the one hand because then they can transfer this over to the handlers and start having fun, but on the other hand—

“‘Course they are,” Whiskey grouses. “Fucks don’t give a rat’s ass about jurisdiction.”

“Technically, jurisdiction’s a courtesy,” one of the twins—Armagnac—pipes up.

“What are you, fucking Benedict Arnold?” 

“That’d be backwards, anyway, if it were true,” Cognac, his sister, notes blandly, and Whiskey just sighs: pedantic little fucks.

“Shut up, both of you,” Brandy, their elder brother, shuts them down and saves Whiskey the trouble. Whiskey always did like him. 

“Scotch is in position to intercept them,” Armagnac cuts in; “and Wine Country’s coming in hot as backup.”

Whiskey frowns. “Napa?”

“Short notice,” Armagnac shakes his head. “Finger Lakes, with Charlottesville on alert.” 

“Think the Scotsman’s gonna take offense?” Cognac asks idly. “To Agent Scotch?”

“The _Scotsman_ just has to take a look at Scotch,” Schnapps, scrappy little fuck that he is, counters quick, and honestly, Whiskey’s not even gonna correct them because he kind of likes the idea of letting Merlin _hear_ them refer to him as anything but his codename, that’ll be a treat; “and I think he’ll be just fine.”

“Point,” Brandy whistles low. “He’s a nice single malt, I’d say.”

Whiskey turns, brow quirked. “A nice single malt, huh?”

Brandy blinks, and Whiskey can follow the way he’s trying to find an out, and fails. Kid needs to probably go back through a few of the basic training modules. 

“You don’t know a goddamn thing about scotch, do you?” Whiskey pushes, because he likes watching these greenhorns squirm.

“Drop zone!” Armagnac calls, and saves Brandy from further discomfort as they all go on full alert.

“Alright, people,” Whiskey calls across the lines of agents glued to their monitors, watching every angle of the descent of the foreign agents trying to wheedle their way in quietly.

“Heads up. The British are coming.”

_____________________________

Seeing Merlin in the rain was a fucking dream; so what if Eggsy’s eyes had tricked him into seeing the shadow as broader, hair on that head, the firelight glinting off his glasses disguising him for just a moment and suggesting, making at the very least _imaginable_ the gleam of a different pair, a different shade of eyes and—

Fuck it. Doesn’t matter. 

Else, if it does: it can’t mean anything, doesn’t change anything, isn’’ fucking relevant: not now. Not now. Not after—

Fuck. No, Eggsy’s obsession over one loss, of whatever irrational portion of whatever he was or is or might have been by his own measure or a measure lost with a bullet through a skull and red, fucking _red_ : Eggsy’s obsession with _one loss_ , even if it was all the better parts of what he was slowly learning to become at the most crucial moments of becoming them, before he knew them well enough to hold onto and make again from the rubble—one loss, when they haven’t been able to make contact, when they know everything’s bombed to fuck and still burning, when they might well be all that _left_ — 

Christ, but Eggsy’s a selfish bastard sometimes, ain’t he?

“Air Command to Kilo-Gamma-Mike,” Eggsy snaps back to the present, where he and Merlin are cramped in a cockpit of a civilian-grade Cessna—Merlin’s own toy, old as the fucking hills and stored in the North off Kingsman property—when the voice cuts through their comms. “You will descend immediately to the designated coordinates.”

“That don’t sound,” Eggsy screws his face up; “official-like.” Because: air command? Like, whose air command, what air command? And they know the basics, but that’s not even their proper call-sign. 

Though numbers probably don’t matter, right, if they’re the only ones left.

Still.

“Trainees,” Merlin says in answer, as he punches a few keys to accept the landing clearance. “We’ve got a _special relationship_ here, after all,” he snipes, a little bitter with it; “so no fuckin’ need to roll out the red carpets or the big guns.” 

Their landing is rough, and as soon as they stop they’re whisked underground, the tarmac dropping swift, artillery aimed at them from every angle along the perimeter.

 

“Those _aren’t_ the big guns?” Eggsy asks, eyes a little wider than he’d like because he’s an international super spy, goddamnit, and he should not be impressed by this kind of firepower.

Appropriately: Merlin rolls his eyes.

“Remember where you are, Eggsy,” he says dryly, leaning back over his seat and letting his neck crack; “and ask that again.”

Well, right.

Fuck.

They halt in the middle of an empty hangar, lighting dim and ominous, save for strategically placed spotlights. Merlin sighs and sits up straight, but their hatch is opening, and the steps unfolding before Merlin can even look at the control panel.

“They can override our systems?” Eggsy asks warily, immediately on alert; Merlin merely signs, and presses his thumb and forefinger hand against the bridge of his nose.

“Seeing as we share the proprietary tech?” Merlin says, and god, but he sound tired. More than. “Sure they _can_ , if I don’t stop ‘em. And honestly, Eggsy?” he meets Eggsy’s eyes as he stands and makes for the open exit. “I cannae be arsed to stop them just now.”

Merlin starts climbing out, and Eggsy follows, only questioning whether Merlin’s armed, should the worst occur, after Merlin’s halfway down in front of him.

He’s got to get his shit together.

“Hands where we can see ‘em.”

Eggsy spins immediately to the source of the voice, and catches as he turns the careful placement of a body, and a gun, at the edge of every splay of light, just enough to catch the metal of the weapons. 

Though more than just the weapons, Eggsy sees when his eyes settle on the man who spoke; it glints off the man’s oversized belt buckle, too—the man who’s watching him intently until Merlin elbows him, which catches him in the side of the head where he’s got his arms up: Eggsy, it seems, isn’t following orders.

Well, Eggsy doesn’t take orders from cowboy wannabes, so hell if that’s how this is gonna go down.

“Who you s’posed to be,” Eggsy asks; “Clint Eastwood?”

Eggsy catches Merlin’s expression as it tightens; wrong move, probably.

Oh well; that’s not a new thing for Eggsy, honestly. He rolls with it mostly okay, on the whole.

“I said,” the man with the buckle drawls, walking a little closer; “hands, where we can see ‘em.”

Eggsy opens his mouth, and he was going to think better of letting anything come out of it, swear down: he was, but then there’s a snap from the darkness and the coil of bindings that curls around his wrists and pull tight, and Eggsy fights it on instinct, except then Merlin;s hissing something that Eggsy doesn’t catch entirely, but that sounds suspiciously like something close to _stop being a fucking twat, Unwin_ , so Eggsy huffs and puts his arms up, palms open. 

The man with the buckle grins openly, spreading his arms wide.

“See?” he booms, voice big and echoing all the louder in the empty space. “That wasn’t hard.”

He walks closer, and holsters his gun on the way; he approaches Merlin, and Eggsy watches him closely with every step, waiting for the in, the need to jump and provide backup because Merlin can handle himself, but they’re both compromised, exhausting, mourning to an extent they don’t yet know, and he’s ready to spring, but Merlin doesn’t move: seems resigned.

Eggsy doesn’t quite understand, until Merlin tenses in grudging expectation just before the man with the belt buckle slaps him on the arm more than collegially; damn well _enthusiastically_.

“Merly!” the man laughs. “Good to see ya, boy.”

“Champagne,” Merlin volleys, stiff as all hell, and frankly Eggsy’s surprised that’s all that comes out, because: _Merly_.

If the dust ever clears, and they ever gain their footing again? Eggsy’s gonna run with that, far as he can.

“How many times I gotta tell you to call me Champ?” the man with the buckle asks, and Merlin rolls his eyes and bites back quick:

“As many times as I have to tell you _not_ to call me Merly.”

“Eh,” Champagne—or Champ, apparently—shrugs: congenial, and entirely undeterred, Eggsy can tell. “Win some, lose some. I’m a stubborn sonuvabitch, though, so I’mma get you one of these days.” He nudges Merlin with another laugh before glancing toward Eggsy.

“If we last that long,” Merlin replies idly before Champagne can say a thing to Eggsy. Champ glances back over his shoulder at Merlin with a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head.

“ _Fuck_ , you’re dour.”

Merlin smirks humorously. “In my blood.”

“Damn right, it is.” Another voice comes the shadows, a brunet with broad shoulders stepping forward. “Best thing that comes out of you neck o’ the woods is Talisker.”

Merlin’s lip curls, not entirely kindly. Or re lly at all kindly.“We’ve been doing a few nice gins lately.”

The man in question takes a solid stance and weigh Merlin up and down quickly; Eggsy, more slowly: deliberate, as he chews at something Eggsy can’t see. “Huh.”

“Shall we get your boys cleaned up?” Champ claps his hands, cocking his head in welcome as if he wasn’t training a gun on them just minutes before, but hell: that’s not really anything new, save for the warm reception that’s following it up just now. 

Save for the shiny bondage toy that’s still wraps about his wrists.

“Wanna let me out of your,” Eggsy squints at the thing, and then toward where it’s coming, from another Agent that’s not revealed himself just yet; “you skipping rope, now?”

“Lasso,” comes the answer in a thick accent, thicker than the others and more natural; man’s got a wide stride and a pretty face and Eggsy thinks he probably gets ribbed for it endlessly. Not just because Eggsy’s felt the brunt of that one, too. “S’a lasso, lime boy.”

Eggsy purses his lips; he’s not one to betray his confusion so openly but still: “ _Lime_ boy?”

“Limey,” the one who sized them up and likes Talisker rolls his eyes before making toward Champ where he’s leading them all out of the hangar; “it’s _limey_ , you dumb fuck.”

“Don’t call me a dumb fuck, Whiskey,” the pretty-boy says, trying to make a whine sound like a professional complaint and failing miserably, poor bastard: “not in front of the guests.”

“Guests already figured that out, Tequila,” Talisker-man, apparently named Whiskey, sighs, voice dripping with tired exasperation. “Every time you open your mouth, everyone figures that out.”

Eggsy stifles a snort, and follows along. He needs a shower more than he needs a laugh.

And he definitely needs a fucking laugh, just now, so that probably says something about how bad he needs a shower.

_____________________________

“Jack,” Tequila, the pretty-faced on, calls across the room they’ve all collected in whilst Eggsy’s hair dries.

“Don’t call me Jack,” Whiskey says, tone flat.

“Daniel?”

Whiskey stares daggers, just then, like Eggsy’s never seen, and Rox is goddamn good at that, so—

Fuck. Fuck, like he needed a reminder that htey don’t know if Rox made it out of her assignment alive; where she could be, if she did.

“Dan?” Tequila ventures again. “Danny?”

Eggsy lets himself be distracted by the banter out of pure necessity, then. Can’t get twisted up in the maybes. Not here and now. He can’t.

They’ve got jobs to do, even if Eggsy doesn’t entirely know what they are yet. He knows they’re there, and that’s what counts.

“Just because we’ve got us some newbies here doesn’t mean you get away with that shit,” Whiskey snipes, and Eggsy notices now that it almost looks like he’s chewing on a long, strong blade of grass. Huh. “Lest I conveniently forget codenames altogether.”

Tequilia’s mouth snaps shut so fast that it’s audible, and Eggsy wonders desperately what the guy’s real name is, now. But curiosity killed the cat and that shit, and they can’t lose any more numbers. 

A camp-moustached man saunters in, and Tequila quickly brightens! “Jimmy!” 

“Oh good,” the man with the moustache rubs his hands together excitedly. “We’re playing the name game!”

“Shut the fuck up, _Turkey_ ,” Whiskey bites out, but the new guy’s not deterred.

“Like that one anyway,” he shurgs; “I’m a _wild_ one.” He glances around at Merlin and Eggsy.

“Whiskey,” he points at Whiskey, presumably by way of official introduction; “and Bourbon,” he points to himself.

“Tequila,” Pretty-Face salutes.

“What else you call him?” Eggsy asks, nodding at Tequila, because he definitely isn’t called by his not-code-name, it seems.

“Nothing,” Whiskey answers definitively. “Just like you don’t call me nothin’ except my name. Which is Whiskey.”

He pauses, before nodded at the moustache-man.

“You can call him Jim,” Whiskey concedes, but it sounds like it’s painful. “He don’t mind.”

“Not Turkey?” Bourbon deflates, and Whiskey just rolls his eyes.

“They’re gonna commit your crazy ass one day, and I’m just gonna stand there and ask what the fuck took them so long.”

“We all know you,” Tequila butts in, gesturing toward Merlin first. “But who might you be?” 

All eyes turn toward the other “newbie” in the room.

“Call me Eggsy.”

Bourbon’s brow furrows. “Wasn’t no Knight called Eggsy,”

“I’da remembered an Eggsy,” Tequila nods.

“Codename Tristan,” Eggsy clarifies; “But call _me_ Eggsy.”

“You Brits and your,” Whiskey sighs, and gives it up with a pop of his lips: “meh.”

“Don’t mind him. S’a moody fucker.”

Whiskey does the dagger-staring thing again before stalking out, but no one pays him much heed, so Eggsy doesn’t either. 

“Why don’t we pop one of our namesakes, yeah?” Bourbon suggests. “Whiskey’ll find his way back if there’s drinks to be had.”

Tequila’s the one who gets up and approaches the bottles. “Preference?”

“Fuck it,” Bourbon answers for the guests: “open both.”

He glances around at Eggsy and Merlin before nodding.

“Not like we won’t finish ‘em.” 

And it’s true, so Eggsy puts Bourbon down as a perceptive loon and reaches for the glass offered to him.

_____________________________

“Come on, Ginge,” Bourbon whines—straight-up whines, because he doesn’t even try to hide it. “Stay a while.”

And they’ve been drinking for hours, now, they _have_ to have been drinking for hours, else this is some moonshine bullshit because Eggsy can hold his liquor with the best of them, but he’s starting to get tipsy. It’s nice, because the reality of their situation, of what is and isn’t let of anything like home—it’s starting to blur and that’s beautiful: beautiful, save that the beautiful that starts to linger in his mind looks like the most intense and inviting eyes, and an umbrella that stops bullets, graceful hands that flip locks and grasp a wrist hard and firm and tight, and fuck. That doesn’t help.

He reaches for his glass and one of the many open bottles from where it sits in front of ‘Ginge’—the tech-genius handler-extraordinaire right-hand-woman Ginger, who is impressive as fuck and, dare Eggsy say it, well fucking fit. 

Though also a little bit terrifying.

“Can’t,” she shrugs; Eggsy gets the impression they’ve been graced with her presence for the half-hour she’s given them in brief by the grace of something impossible. “Got gardening to see to.”

Bourbon’s the first to respond to that—predictably, Eggsy already can tell—and it’s with a snort.

“Of all things,” Bourbon snarks; “ _that’ll_ fuckin’ keep.”

Ginger glares at him, and shifts in a way that indicates she intends to stand, but Eggsy feel immediately inclined to keep her there a little longer: she’s magnetic in an undeniable way, and while she’s not really Eggsy’s type—though the type Eggsy’s hung up on is a long gone and never coming back and—

Eggsy didn’t realise he was still holding his glass out until Ginger reaches and fills it for him.

“So,” he says as he pours expertly; Eggsy’s only seen that skill once before and it twists in his stomach again and so he downs the motherfucker quick. “It’s fine to call you ‘Ginge’?”

“Fine’s an overstatement,” Ginger surveys the group with the weary exhaustion of a parent. Probably of a toddler. “But I’m a grown-up,” the _unlike some people_ is unspoken, because it doesn’t need to be anything more; “and these boys know what I will and won’t tolerate in my house.”

He notes the beat of absolute silence that follows, and yeah. It’s clear that this is Ginger’s house.

Goddamn, she’s America’s Merlin. Through and through.

“They’ll get salty sometimes, if you call them the wrong thing,” she adds; “but the only one to _really_ watch is Champagne.”

“But he said call ‘im Champ,” Eggsy says; “Ain’t that a nickname?”

“That one’s fine, plus it’s complimentary,” Ginger smirks; “strokes that ego of his.”

“I heard someone tried to call him Marty, once,” Whiskey—who did indeed return when alcohol was present and flowing—cuts in thoughtfully.

“Like Martini Asti,” Tequila adds, like it’s not fucking obvious.

“Now, might well be a coincidence,” Whiskey grins, cheshire and deadly; “but that sonuvabitch wasn’t ever seen again.”

Right, that’s; yeah. Right.

“So what’s with your name, then?” Eggsy asks, pointedly ignoring the death glare Merlin’s shooting at him and oh, that makes sense. He wants his match made in America to be his _match_ made in America.

Oh, Eggsy would have great fun with this. 

“Ginger?” she grins a little, but Eggsy can’t decide if it’s amused or patronising. Maybe both?

Both would probably work, yeah. Fuck, but again: she’s mildly terrifying. 

“Geeze, well,” she taps on her pad a few times before putting it aside. “Project Ginger was this thing shrouded in absolute secrecy and no one knew what it was, probably around… 16 years ago? All the big tech names were implicated, somehow involved, and it was a mystery. Could have been anything. Could have been nothing.”

She reaches over to tap on her tablet just before it even illuminates with a message. See? Terrifying.

Though it’s fuckin’ Christmas, with the way Merlin watches her like he wants to worship at her feet. So: worth it.

“Well,” Eggsy ventures, leans forward in his seat. “What was it?”

“Does it matter?” Ginger shrugs, pushing her glasses up her nose idly. “If you don’t know what’s behind Door Number One, you’re always on your toes, because you can’t predict what’s coming.”

“I,” Eggsy starts, but there’s nowhere to go from there, because: “Well, no, guess it don’t matter.”

Ginger’s smile veers away from either amused or patronising, and just looks mildly, inwardly pleased.

“Time to go, gentlemen,” Champagne’s voice rings through the room, and Eggsy and Merlin stand to leave; Eggsy’s at the edge of the sliding glass when Ginger’s voice stops him.

“It was a scooter.” 

He turns.

“Like, a segway,” she flips her hand and tosses her hair. “But until I just told you that? Could have been a warhead, or the next evolution of mobile technology.” 

Her eyes darken a little; unforgiving. “Could have been Steve Jobs’ ghost, or Richmond Valentine back from the dead.”

Eggsy’s chest clenches a little, which is better than it used to be when anything that started with _Val-_ came to bear, but it doesn’t release when Ginger’s countenance brightens with a knowing quirk of lips—baby steps, he guesses.

If that.

“See what I mean?” she asks, before she stands and clicks on her heel in passing him by on her own way out, and yeah. Fuck.

Eggsy sees what she means. 

“Though to the point of famous ghosts,” she tosses over her shoulder once more in parting; “please don’t indulge Agent Jobs’ delusions of grandeur regarding his imagined embodiment of his namesake?” she winks on her way out: 

“We’d all be appreciative.”

_____________________________

Champagne’s showed them their rooms to bunk down and given them the lay of the land—or as much of it as international clearance allows to the compound, which is _just_ a compound and not their headquarters, which is strange and overwhelming a little, because how fucking _big_ must a Kingsman-of-the-United-States actually have to be?

Pretty fucking big, probably. Right.

And Eggsy should be exhausted, should have turned in when Merlin did rather than finishing the last bottle of bubbly with Bourbon and Champ; hell, should have turned in when _they_ did, but he’s restless. And the buzz is wearing into something mournful, empty, and Eggsy remembers the taste of a martini that’s never tasted right again, so he tosses, he turns, and then he says fuck that shit.

Fuck that shit, and he gets up, and wanders. Because maybe that’ll help. Maybe he’ll get lost a little, and that lost and empty feeling that the drinks left behind, that lives and gnaws beneath the surface and the suit: maybe he’ll wander into it, and feel like he’s in the right place, somehow.

He almost runs into Ginger, at the crossways of two corridors.

“Hey,” she says, eying him and summing him up in a blink, he can feel it, before she leans down and braces a hand on his shoulder, honest concern in her eyes. “You okay?”

“Herbs or flowers?”

He’s not even thinking, when the words come out. He’s not sure how they even come about, but that’s what he’s got. She quirks a brow at him.

“Or, you know,” he clears his throat, hopes to steady and claim back his voice where it’s gone too high and cracked. “Succulents?” 

She continues to eye him scpetically.

“Gardening,” he clarifies, because it’s the arse-end of night and fuck if he even knows what he’s talking about, it was hours ago that Ginger left for gardening, or whatever gardening really meant, and maybe Eggsy’s kind of hoping it wasn’t just a metaphor, or a codename, or whatever, maybe it’d be nice to just, be. Around green, when everything is still red, red, red—

“I wondered if maybe I could take a look?”

Ginger considers him, and then her lips curve.

“Guilty pleasure,” she says, kind in a way that so few people are, Eggsy’s long learned and known. “Like growing things, me.”

“Have you always?” Eggsy asks—before he thinks, again, and that’s dangerous, and he suddenly understands why this is Ginger’s house all the more keenly. But so long as he’s dug the trench: “Or was it the job?”

Her grin widens, but it’s darker: there’s a purse in those lips that’s almost sad.

“You’re a sharp one,” Ginger says, appraising and just shy of approving, maybe. “Morgana said to keep an eye on you.”

“Morgana?” Eggsy clings to the name, because what if they’d survived, what if they’d made it out; “Is she—”

“We don’t know.” Ginger looks as sad as Eggsy feels, like causing his heart to drop again makes hers do the same. “She alerted us, so she knew it was coming, but…” She shakes her head.

“I’m sorry,” Ginger tells him, but he shrugs, because there ain’t nothing else to do, is there?

“Thanks.”

“Are you alright?”

Eggsy understands, clearly, that it’s a question without an answer, because there’s only one answer to the question, and it’s not the one anyone will ever give.

“Fine,” Eggsy says with a nod, because another they’ll never do is stop trying to convince themselves as well as they convince everyone else. “I mean, it’s the job, yeah?”

“Lots of things are the job,” Ginger’s smile’s lost all good humour, now. Too bad, really. “Did you want to point out something specific?”

 

“Losing,” Eggsy says, still easy with her, willing to speak to her in a way he hasn’t felt since...well. 

“I mean, first it was Haz—”

“Haz?” 

Eggsy pauses. He so rarely says the name out loud; so rarely has time to indulge the sharpness on the tongue.

“Galahad,” he manages to form the word. “Harry Hart?”

Ginger’s eyes narrow, widen, and then steady. She looks sad, by the end, and Eggsy wonders what she knew of Harry, and how. When.

“Yeah,” Eggsy says, averting his gaze because it’s easier, that way: not to think or wonder, and not to be seen, just for a quick second. “Yeah, he,” Eggsy exhales so; breathes in and straightens up again, looking Ginger in the eye once more. 

“I was his proposal? And I mean, he was,” Eggsy cocks his head and swallows hard; “for me, he was, he meant...”

God fucking _damnit_. He a spy, for fuck’s sake. He should not be this fucking soft, this fucking easy to crack, this fucking _obvious_. 

He needs an out.

“S’the job, though.” That’s what Eggsy settles on; the words he goes with. Because that’s the only truth he can manage to force between his lips: rote and tired and stale, already said and used and worn but fuck. S’all he’s got.

“Shit happens, and ya know what you’re signin’ up for, doncha?”

Ginger doesn’t say anything, and it’s only a few moment where she’s silent, but it feels like a lifetime. Eggsy thinks very hard on going back to his room.

“That was when she mentioned you,” Ginger cuts off his plans for retreat; “Morgana. During the candidate trials and then,” Ginger signs, long and deep: “after Agent Galahad. At the church.”

“The chur…” Eggsy trails off, the images flashing behind his eyes from that screen, through glasses across a fucking ocean like they do every night, like they don’t care if he’s asleep or not because they’ll come anyway, they’re always coming—

“The garden’s being tended at present,” Ginger’s hand’s on his arm again. “Pruning, shaping,” she tilts her head; “checking for new growth, taming weeds.”

She smiles, then. 

“We don’t like to be caught less than our best after all,” she says knowingly; “it’s the job, yeah?”

He returns her smile, but it’s weak.

“It’s getting early,” she notes, and then straightens and lets go of Eggsy’s shoulder. 

“Coffee?” she offers, tilting her head down the hall toward where there is presumably coffee, and yes, coffee. He doesn’t remember drinking coffee with Ha—

Yes, coffee.

Fuck yes.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
